Inside the Blue Line

THE ADIRONDACKS

Primary Industries

Adirondack Statistics• Adirondack State Park - 6 Million Acres

• Adirondack Forest Preserve - 2.3 Million Acres

• 8,000 Sq. miles of mountains

• 2,000 miles of foot trails

• 240 lean-tos

• 35 campsites

• 200 lakes at least a square mile area

• There are over 2,000 high peak mountains

• There are over 40 high peak mountains over 4,000 feet

• The highest peak is Mount Marcy at 5,344 feet

• There are over 50 species of animals

• Over 220 Birds

• Over 30 species of reptiles and amphibians

• 66 species of fish

• Over 2,300 lakes and ponds

• 1,500 miles of rivers

• 30,000 miles of brooks and streams

Logging

Mining

Farming

Medicine

Tourism

Primary EmployersUS GovernmentSchool Districts

Adirondack History

•Original Inhabitants: Mohawk First Nation (until about 1720)•Decimated by Disease• After American Revolution, driven into the Midwest and Canada

• 1864: George Perkins Marsh, Man and Nature• Argued that deforestation could lead to total “desertification”

• 1870: Verplank Colvin (surveyor)•Wrote about the need to protect the forests and mountain ranges lest we eventually cause the silting up of the Erie Canal and the flooding of cities such as Albany• Took photos to Albany to convince legislators• 1892: Adirondack Park created as a region “forever wild”

Began in early 1800s

Earliest settlements around timber and iron ore deposits: St. Regis, Paul Smiths, Old Forge

Tracts of land cleared for farming in the Central Adirondacks

Seasonal visitors and tourists arrive, building Great Camps and residential hospitals for tuberculosis patients: late 19 th Century

FIRST SETTLEMENTS

Today in the Adirondacks• Aging Population (average 43-51 years of age)• Soon to surpass Florida in elderly population

• Study by consortium of Agencies and Villages in the Park• Newcomb lost 61% of its population between 1950 and 2006• Moriah lost 21% . . . and so on• Study’s conclusion: “If this trend continues, in 20 years it will

be the oldest region in the country.”

• School Districts decreasing• Number of students dropped 31% between 1970 and 2007

• Median Income consistently about $10,ooo lower than that of people outside the park• 76% of land undeveloped• 11% residential, with 40% of homes owned by seasonal residents

How to preserve the people as well as the land?• Developers argue that more land should be available for private use.• Environmentalists disagree.

Hayden C. Tormey, an Adirondack Guide

Hayden Tormey lives in the same brown-shingle house where he was born 69 years ago. Retired because of arthritis, he now hand-carves wooden loons and ducks to make a modest living.

Like many independent minded people who live in the park, he says he doesn’t exactly take kindly to the government. And some things in the 1992 Park Commission’s report—such as listing appropriate colors for roofs of houses in the park—irked him a great deal.

But when he decided to give up some family land on Lake Kushaqua several years ago, he turned down offers from a developer and sold it to the state instead, at a lower price.

“I wanted it to last,” he explained. “‘Forever wild,’ like it says. In my mind anyway, that was the idea.”

—New York Times, May 19, 1992